For cheering activities in sports, various accessories are frequently used. The accessories are usually ascribed as pompons. Amongst the various pompoms in vogue, common ones are the hand-held pompom accessories. However, most of such pompoms have either the disadvantage of restricting the freedom of movements of the hands/wrists or utilizing a specific portion of the hand, e.g., hands, fingers, etc. Besides, most of these cannot be attached to any other body part apart from the increased probability of the users to leave them behind after the event is over. Some of the previous inventions on similar lines are given below.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,234,725 discloses a wrist pompon structure. The basic idea of this invention is an elastomeric tubular sleeve having a forward annular end wherein annular arrays of elongated, flexible tassel webs are secured. The advantage of this invention is that the cheerleader does not need to hold the pompon in her hand. However this invention does not allow the use of pompons of different structures and for different purposes as well.
With respect to developing a self-securing pompon, as portrayed in quite a number of inventions, the basic structure consists of a loop to enable it placed through the body, thus securing to a person. Such a way of securing the pompom to various body parts, e.g., finger, hand or ankle allows a user to put the body part through the loop. A disadvantage of such a securing is that the loop of the pompom may become loose thus, forcing the holder to hold the pompon loop with her hand to ensure its stability. Moreover, the invention only talks about the usage of pompoms for cheering in sports and similar such events.
The U.S. Pat. No. 7,251,838 B1 discloses a cheering system that allows the wearer of the cheering devices to selectively couple various types of pompoms or cheering devices to a plurality of fingers in such a manner so that the person's hands gets free for gripping other items, or clapping, performing stunts or for other purposes. However, the invention utilizes only the fingers for cheering activities with the other portions of the arm not utilized for cheering activities. This restricts a plethora of cheering activities that could have been undertaken by enabling various movements of the arms.